Among the dozens of bills whizzing through the House this week under the streamlined "suspension of the rules" process is the Energy Markets Emergency Act. This process is reserved for so-called non-controversial bills. The streamlined process allows no amendments and requires the bill get a 2/3 majority in order to pass.

On the website of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the bill is listed with no bill number on the Thursday, June 26, 2008 floor notice:

ReadtheBill.org today wrote to Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) to thank him for speaking out on the problem of Congress not having time to read bills, and to urge him to cosponsor the best solution -- H.Res. 504. Ellen Miller, Executive Director of the Sunlight Foundation, also blogged about the letter. Following is an excerpt:

Blogger Glenn Greenwald focused June 20, 2008 on how little time House members had to read the FISA bill.

UPDATE IV: With less than 24 hours to read -- let alone understand -- what they were voting on, the Democratic-controlled House just passed the "compromise" FISA/telecom amnesty bill by a vote of 293-129. I'll post the link to the roll call when it is available. As always, Republicans supported the bill virtually in lockstep, while Democrats split (105-128). Barack Obama managed not to express a view one way or the other prior to the vote (and still hasn't). Nancy Pelosi spoke in favor of the bill, so the whole top layer of House Democratic leadership supported the bill.

ReadtheBill.org believes that House Democrats are slipping into some of the same bad habits for which they justifiably criticized the 1995-2006 House Republican majority.

On June 19, 2008 Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) engaged in a twitter dialogue with Sunlight Foundation Executive Director Ellen Miller. Kudos to Ellen for asking Rep. Culberson to cosponsor H.Res. 504. Sponsored by Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), it would require bills and conference reports to be posted online for 72 hours before House floor debate began.

Here is an excerpt (latest tweets at the top):

EllnMllr @johnculberson Support Rep Baird’s H. Res 504. http://tinyurl.com/583dkr There are 13 bipartisan co-sponsors. about 3 hours ago from web in reply to johnculberson

johnculberson @EllnMllr I am also going to ask my Repub colleagues to support 72 hr rule about 2 hours ago from web in reply to EllnMllr

Johnculberson @EllnMllr Right now is a perfect example of how desperately America needs you and others through the Internet to shine sunlight on Congress about 2 hours ago from web in reply to EllnMllr

johnculberson @EllnMllr Please eblast your members your followers and let them know their Congressmen are being asked to approve $185 Bill in War spending about 2 hours ago from web in reply to EllnMllr

johnculberson @EllnMllr in a floor vote before 6pm on a 184 pg $185 b bill that was written at 2:37pm and filed publicly about the same time - outrage! about 2 hours ago from web in reply to EllnMllr

ReadtheBill.org has followed up with Rep. Culberson's staff about H.Res. 504. No word yet if his office is interested. If you are a constituent, please contact him. H.Res. 504 is the best solution proposed to the problem he highlights.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) re-introduced his Sunlight Act on January 4, 2007. The bill contains some tough provisions on a variety of subjects. Unfortunately, it would only require bills to be posted online for 48 hours, which would weaken existing House rules, which require availability for three calendar days.

As of December 19, 2007, H.R. 170 has no cosponsors.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) gave the following statement on the omnibus bill December 18:

As we approach the end of the year, Congress once again finds itself on a last minute spending spree, approving billions of dollars of new spending with few questions asked, no amendments allowed, and little debate, discussion, or inspection permitted.

Taxpayers for Common Sense president Ryan Alexander's statement on omnibus.

Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation has a good post.

See also the Heritage Foundation's Omnibusting Blog.

Despite his many complaints about the omnibus process since the summer, President George W. Bush seems to have agreed to sign the omnibus appropriations bill so long as he gets continued funding for the Iraq War.

Perhaps it was unreasonable to hope for anything different. No other president has ever vetoed an omnibus spending bill for the reason that it was an omnibus bill. Even President Reagan signed the FY1988 omnibus bill he later criticized in his 1988 State of the Union address.